Between the Lines
by zunarj5
Summary: Started off as a one-shot but became something more. Drabble 1: A good old fashioned pre-film bickering match with a bit of love hidden between the insults.
1. Drabble 1: Bickering

As usual, they both regretted getting into an argument about whose work is the more important. It was a losing battle. Math vs. Biology. Might as well be Kaiju vs. Jaeger. There was no right or wrong and they both secretly knew it; it was just their way of fighting for respect, regardless of how fruitless it was.

"They're not mutually exclusive, Hermann." He wanted to add 'like us' but thought it would be a little too sentimental for his lab mate. Not all their limits could be defined by duct tape on the floor and Hermann's emotions were probably strangled by the silvery-grey stuff already. "And neither is more important." He almost believed that but instantly regretted giving in an inch to Hermann.

"Without mathematics, biology wouldn't exist."

"And without biology, math would be even more boring. Still don't know how you can do math, pure math. How do you even have a brain left?"

"Math defines all. My work is not defined by the Kaiju, as it is for you." Hermann pressed too hard on the blackboard and his chalk snapped. He huffed and picked up a new piece, hoping Newton didn't notice.

"Dude, if it weren't for the Kaiju, neither of us would even have jobs. Or if we did, you'd be the math professor at the University of Timbuktu that everybody hated!"

"I wouldn't mind that, it was established in the 12th century."

"When you were born?" Newton mouthed to himself. Hermann's feigned calmness was not fooling Newton, and he watched the chalk dust pile up furiously beneath Hermann's quickening fingers at the bottom of the board.

"Pretentious bastard." He shouldn't have said it but the opportunity to further enflame buttoned up pseudo-placid Hermann was too delicious to pass up. He almost felt bad that he may have hurt the man's feelings until he heard the comeback.

"And you'd be a high school biology teacher that everyone ridiculed behind his back."

"Ok, that's it." Newt picked up a sloppy wad of Kaiju entrails and hurled them across the room and they landed smack dab on the back of Hermann's fricking pencil neck; what an excellent shot! Hermann stopped writing immediately and stood completely frozen. Newt stopped breathing. Herman dropped the chalk, slapped a hand on the back of his neck, wiped off the slimy residue and whipped it on the floor with greater force than Newton expected him capable, creating an audible splat.

"Clean this filthy mess up!" he growled, looking at the floor, and stalked off toward his quarters as vigorously as possible. Newton stood in the refreshing but sad silence for a minute. He hated it when they hurt eachother. Friendly squabbling sure, but actual deliberate insults were the absolute worst with them. They really knew how to stick the knife into eachother all too well. He got the cleaning kit out (that he usually didn't bother with) and went to work.

"You'll be able to see your stupid face in it, you..." Newton muttered with childish spite. He got up and stood, looking up at the chalkboard. Hermann's work, Hermann's mind, was right there in front of him. He shouldn't have made fun of him like that. He sighed. After a few seconds of reluctant repentance he headed down to Hermann's quarters. The door was ajar. Hermann's jacket was off. He was at the sink, face and neck wet. Newt's eyes widened. "I've never seen him with his jacket off before," he thought. He cleared his throat. Hermann pretended not to notice, but dropping the washcloth ruined the facade. If Newton wasn't so nervous about what to say he'd have smiled.

"I...shouldn't have done that."

"Thank you for your contrition." Hermann turned away, wiping his neck with a towel. If it had been a better situation, Newt would have practically forced his way in like a freshman at college wanting to see the upperclassman's room. But he stood there. Only Hermann's back visible. White shirt clinging to his thin frame.

"I was ridiculed in high school, behind my back. I mean, you know that already, but..."

"I shouldn't have said it."

"I was just trying to get your goat. I do that. And I totally understand the math thing, I really do. The whole concept, like 'math is a computer program that runs the computer of life' or some other poetic crap that you'd probably say, I get that, but what I do is important too. And it's pretty much all I've got." ("Don't say 'and you', don't say 'and you'".)

"I know I'm boring. I admit it." Hermann was about to say he knows people hate him but that would be guilting Newton into saying he didn't hate him and it wouldn't be a true test. It wouldn't be a constant, if there was one in their...whatever it was they had.

"You're not boring. Seriously, dude, I mean it. You're the most entertaining person to argue with." Hermann turned his head to the side a little and Newt saw a tiny soft smile. Hermann reached for his jacket and put it on. The silence was a little less painful.

"The floor's clean." Hermann turned around and took his cane. Suddenly it was alright for them to walk down the hall together. Hermann closed his door behind him before Newton had a chance to peer in. Newt launched into an elaborate Kaiju theory (desperately pretending nothing had happened) and Hermann rolled his eyes.

"So what I'm saying, is, that..." Secretly, Hermann decided to predict Newton's ravings like Kaiju attacks. Yes, math could define everything. Or so he liked to tell himself.


	2. Drabble 2: Speaker Wars

After the Kaiju-intestine-slinging incident, things returned to normal, but Newton and Hermann had reached a plateau that was slightly less juvenile than their usual petty arguments. Whenever they talked about anything after that, all the contents of their letters seemed to spill out onto the floor between them like invisible sick. Their most recent insults had had such a ring of intimacy to them. They both knew they had gone too far. Consequently they were overly polite to one another for quite a few days after that. Once, Newt caught Hermann looking at him over his shoulder, chalk poised on the board, and when they accidently locked eyes for a nano-second, Hermann immediately started scrawling and Newton started to whistle in a very uncharacteristic fashion. "Shit, shit, shit," Newt chanted in his mind.

About a week later, during a crazy-long shift preceding a string of Kaiju attacks (at that point the worst on record), Newton slam-dunked his third energy drink of the last 24 hours into the large garbage bin across the room. Hermann stood at his desk and tisked.

"Those things will damage your heart," he said, keeping focussed on his composition notebook and selection of yellow #2 pencils.

"Didn't think you cared."

"I don't," Hermann said too fast to be true.

"And all your cups of tea are soooo good for your health, man," Newton said sarcastically.

"My tea only contains caffeine, not high levels of sugar or other stimulant drugs as those little cans from hell do."

"They're not that bad."

"I seem to remember you telling me your heart skipped a beat once."

"Ok, ok. It was just that one time."

"If my calculations are correct, there will be many other 'one times'."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure." Newton made his usual 'blah blah' motion with his gloved hands.

"And your heart hasn't given you any trouble since that incident I mentioned?"

"No, no." Newton was telling the truth, but only in the physical sense. His heart was bothering him. He just didn't admit in words. He didn't say inside his mind "I really love that jerk," not even in jest. It was just a little jolt in his heart when he saw Hermann in the morning, when the man said something to him that fell into the category of nice, and especially when they made eye contact for any reason whatsoever. But all this was buried under miles and miles of denial and Kaiju enthusiasm.

"Music?" Newton said hopefully. Hermann groaned.

"As long as it's not that heavy metal stuff you blare at me. It gives me a headache."

"Sure," Newt said, walking to the corner of the lab and powering up his high tech mp3. "Let's go with a classic." AC/DC's Back in Black exploded from the speakers. Newt started air guitar while still holding a scalpel.

"Oh God," Hermann said, making his lips as thin as a sun-dried rubber band and shutting his eyes. When the vocals really heated up he walked drearily over to his own music player and switched it on. Newton was hit with a wall of Dvořák's 9th Symphony. He over-reacted by shaking his head like he'd been hit by a cartoon mallet and looked over at Hermann who was glaring back. The twinge in his heart was totally absorbed by the deafening cocktail of Allegro Con Fuoco and Australian hard rock. The sound of the two pieces fighting one another at every quarter note made Hermann's stomach lurch and he tried to concentrate on the classical meter as hard as possible.

"Dude! DUDE!" Newton yelled. Hermann waved him off and cranked up the volume. "DUUUUDDDE! THIS WOULD MAKE AN AWESOME MASHUP!" Newt rolled his eyes. He flipped off his music just as the song was ending. Hermann looked up with a start and turned the volume down to a whisper. Newton walked over to the blackboards.

"I was screaming at you, man. I said AC/DC and Dvořák would make an epic mash-up."

"No thank you. My ears were on the verge of bleeding as it is."

"Dvořák, right?" Newt said. Hermann nodded. "Funny, I took you for a Wagner kinda guy."

"No, I prefer Bruckner...Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov..."

"The tempestuous ones, huh?" Neither of them fought a small smile.

"Surprised you know who they a – oh, your parents, yes." Hermann tried not to jam the whole of his proverbial foot in his mouth. There was another personal land mine they had to step over. Not that they hadn't discussed it in full detail in their letters but face to face the false anonymity dropped completely. Suddenly they couldn't discuss all the things they did before. They just knew. When things like this did come up they simply stopped in their tracks and nodded and changed the subject. Hermann leaned to the side and switched off the New World Symphony. They looked in eachother's eyes for a second and Newton went back to his work.

"Damn. I gotta cut down on those energy drinks."


End file.
